Pentecost Pageant – 6 days to go

And I start in Essex, blurry eyed searching for my wallet. Can’t find the damm thing. Due on a train at 7. Still haven’t found it. Another train goes past. Then another. And another. Each with its own taunting hoot and rattle. In desperation knock on the door of the local (and very fab) deli – on their day off – ‘did I…by any chance’ – needless to say it ‘aint there.

Eventually find it back in the first place I looked. Only this time I was a little less blurry eyed.

Already I’ve lost nearly two hours of my carefully planned day.

Finding this in my notebook on the train though makes me smile, its from a visit to Bosa in Sardinia, taken from a guide book:-

Carnevale kicks off with a burning pyre outside the Chiesa di Sant Antonio Abate and follows with days of parades, culminating in boisterous celebrations on Shrove Tuesday. The following day townsfolk dress in black to lament the passing of the Carnevale, while in the evening groups of locals dress in white to hunt the golzi, a manifestation of the carnival that is said to hide in people’s groins. To find it people hold lanterns up to each other’s nether regions shouting Giolzi, Giolzi Ciappadu Ciappadu which roughly translates as Giolzi Giolzi Gotcha Gotcha

I return to the task in hand. Working on the line up whilst simultaneously updating a risk assessment. Opposite me a daily commuter quietly snoozes … when he wakes. somewhere East of Stratford, I consider asking him if he is hiding Giolzi but think better of it.

Up in Liverpool an afternoon of meetings, paperwork, schedules and the rest. The BBC said me through their risk assessment with the message ‘Here are those ‘wonderful’ documents for you to enjoy’. Meanwhile there’s a flurry of anxious e mails about what has been nicknamed ‘the moment’.

But Monday night we’re back on Hope Street doing the first of several walk through’s with various participants. Tonight we’re joined by Beatlife, by the Liverpool Welsh Choral, by YEP and by MDI. In the early evening sunshine there’s a mood of celebration as we dodge cars and passers by walking through what will happen on Sunday sorting teething issues. But as the list of things to do gets longer – the smiles get larger! A weird correlation that.

At the end of the day I find myself ringing a confetti company, frustrated they don’t answer. Don’t they know we have a Pageant to put on….